Continuing the Journey

A Painful First Day in Guangzhou...

The White Swan is beautiful and the breakfast buffet is incredible (LOVE the French toast!). Also, even though we were told we might not get one due to the recent bankruptcy of the manufacturer…

…our “Going Home” adoption Barbie was delivered to the room. Does any of that sound painful to you? No, those were actually the highlights of our first day in Guangzhou. The painful part took place here…

…because the new Hague adoption requirements now mandate that our children must be immunized in China before bringing them to the U.S. The beginning of our nearly four hour stay in the clinic was fairly benign…
…as Molly just had to endure an exam of her surgical scar…

…a routine ENT exam…

…and had her height, weight, and temperature taken. The clinic has been redesigned since our adoption trip two years ago and everything is handled in the back section, which actually was fairly efficient. (The last time, the height, weight, and temperature portion was done in the front of the clinic with the regular patients…it was a bit chaotic.)

Once the easy part was done, we were seated in a hallway and handed a piece of paper telling us how many shots our child was to receive, in addition to the TB skin test. Molly’s paper…

…showed that she was to get five vaccinations. Gulp! First, though, we had to handle the TB skin test…

…and Daddy and I decided that, since she has bonded so well with him, I would be the “bad guy” and hold her for her shots so he could be the one to console her afterwards. Lucky me, huh?!

While our baby girl is spunky…

…she did not enjoy the needle and screamed a fought like a trooper. Afterwards, she was pretty irritated with the boo-boo on her arm…

…and kept trying to scratch it off her arm. Next came the wait for the vaccinations. This part of the clinic visit seemed a bit disorganized and the wait was extremely long. Luckily we had brought the stroller…

…and Molly slept through the entire wait. We got moved to second-to-last in our line – it appeared they did the kids in age order, and she is the second oldest of our group – which ended up being a good thing for Molly. The first couple of kids got their shots in a very drawn out process of give shot, document on the computer, prepare next shot, give shot, document on the computer, etc. The problem with that is the kids had to sit and wait for the inevitable next shot…screaming their heads off the whole way.

When the nurses saw Molly – while she’s tiny for her age, she’s incredibly muscular and strong-willed and was already screaming when they met her – the both rapidly opened the single-dose vials and drew up all the meds at once. She then got her shots in a rapid-fire sequence with no documentation to break up the routine. She ended up with two injections in her left arm, one in her right arm, and one each in her upper legs.

All things considered, this addition to the clinic visit was NOT as bad as I had expected. The facility was clean and the needles were included in the shrink-wrapped boxes with the single-dose vials, which added an assurance that they were clean and not being re-used. We were also given all of the boxes from the shots she got to take back home for her first check-up with her pediatrician. While no one likes to endure vaccinations with their child, this really was no worse than a typical visit to the doctor at home.

We were required to wait in the clinic for 30 minutes after her immunizations in case she had a reaction, and by the time we were released it was nearly 1PM! We were starving, so we headed to our favorite Guangzhou eatery…

…Lucy’s! (No, it wasn’t dark by the time we got out of the clinic, I just took this picture later last night.) We were a bit worried how Molly would act in the restaurant. Our worries were unnecessary…

…and she was all smiles and silliness! (Have I mentioned how resilient this kid is?!) At Lucy’s we had another first…

…as Molly enjoyed her first peanut butter and jelly sandwich! (She looked a bit concerned with that first bite but ended up enjoying it immensely.)

So, Molly, did you enjoy your first taste of American-style food?

We’ll take that as a resounding “YES!” While we expected her to be crabby and uncooperative at lunch (especially with Mommy), we got just the opposite…

…as she continued to charm everyone who met her! What a doll!!

We headed back to the room around 2PM and get settled in for naptime. Molly really fought her nap (which is NOT like her), but I surely didn’t fight mine…

…and I was shocked to see that she had rejected her bed and decided to climb on the bed with me for her nap! That’s a true first!!

After a very nice nap and our paperwork appointment with Jason, we had dinner in the room from the White Swan Deli and decided to go for a walk and see the river at night. (Molly LOVES watching the boats through the wall of windows during breakfast.)

As we approached the river walk area, I saw Erin approaching us, laughing. She said she knew Molly was coming because she heard her voice and could pick it out of the crowd! (Out of a crowd full of Chinese people, mind you.) Our little raspy-voiced sweetheart is truly one-of-a-kind, I guess! We got pics in front of the river…

…of Ann, Lily, and Erin…

…and of our little family unit, then headed to the White Swan Deli for ice cream with Ann and her girls. Molly loves ice cream (that’s my girl!), but was clearly exhausted from her day…

…and only got a second wind when we entered…

…the hotel’s playroom with Lily (who Molly calls “Mei Mei,” which means little sister). The girls had a ball and we ended up staying in there about an hour…the adults lying on the carpet watching Madagascar 2 (in Spanish, we think) and chatting while the kids played. Molly was still in a great mood…

…and kept us all laughing with her crazy antics.

After bathtime, she easily went to bed and was out in a matter of minutes. Glad that day is over! We have to go back to the clinic on Monday to have her TB skin test checked. So far, however, there is no reaction…thank goodness.

Closing pics tonight have a theme of sunglasses….

…and silliness.

Next up: a lazy day in the room with a sick baby girl.